Kyle Steckly Dons Green Jacket, Wins Masters of the Pros 200

Kyle Steckly donned the green jacket on Wednesday night at Owosso Speedway after winning the Masters of the Pros 200 for the Turn One CRA Pro Series.

Steckly took the lead on lap 114 in his No. 22 APC Auto Parts Centres Toyota, leading the rest of the distance to earn his first career victory with the Turn One CRA Pro Series. He did so with his team from Canada that has won two APC United Racing Series championships, a special moment for him and the crew.

"It feels amazing," said Steckly in victory lane. "This one's special. First U.S. win with the 22 Racing boys. They're who I grew up with, going to the track with my dad and now me racing. It's just been so much fun.

"We had a really fast car this weekend. What a race. I wanted it to go green there, but those couple of restarts made it exciting and made me work for it."

Late-race cautions shuffled the field behind Steckly and put pressure on him for the closing laps, but Steckly held strong to secure the victory

"Just trying to think of everything, I could, make sure that I had good position going into one. It's tricky. Everyone's so good here, obviously. Chase was to my inside. He had some good starts there. I just knew the top was dominant. We were able to roll."

Blake Rowe finished second to Steckly after having to charge through the field. Rowe was one of several drivers collected in a multi-car incident on a lap 52 restart, dropping him out of the top five to 15th.

From there, Rowe scratched and clawed his way up the leaderboard, moving into second with 14 laps to go.

"Not the run we wanted to have today," Rowe said. "Proud of the effort. A1 job by my crew getting this thing back together enough to still make a little bit of speed.

"I suppose I didn't make a whole lot of friends there. That wasn't really the intent. I felt like I got used up just as much. Life goes on, man. I made it out alive and I'm going to Birch Run."

While Rowe was frustrated with the early incident, he knew he had a car strong enough to compete for the win. He hopes next year's Masters of the Pros will give him the opportunity to do so with a little less adversity.

"It's a lot of race. Getting frustrated is one thing, but throwing the towel in is another. We're never going to do that. Quite honestly, this is the second back-to-front challenge I've had in a Masters of the Pros. One of these days, we'll just have a clean 200 laps and park it one position better."

Tyler Lupton finished third, the highest finishing rookie in the field of 25 cars that started the race. In his three races with the Turn One CRA Pro Series this season, Lupton has not finished worse than fourth.

"We redrew pretty good, started sixth, and had a great car," Lupton said. "We were able to get up to second pretty quickly and then lapped traffic came around. We were able to fight for the lead with chasing Kyle.

"Really close, really wanted that green jacket. We'll try again next year."

Chase Pinsonneault led the first 113 laps of the race before turning over the top spot to fellow Canadian Steckly. After an adjustment to the No. 14 entry, Pinsonneault's car wasn't the same as it had been while dominating the first half.

"I just made an adjustment," Pinsonneault acknowledged. |I thought we were getting a little bit tight. I thought, when the sun went down, we were maybe going to want to free it up a little bit with the grip. Just wasn't the direction we needed to go. Lost some track position, and then just at the end, got shuffled there."

Former NASCAR Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick and his son Keelan were part of the Masters of the Pros field. Keelan earned the family bragging rights on Wednesday, finishing fifth while Kevin Harvick finished eighth.

Keelan Harvick believed a stronger finish was possible, but he could not gain the upper hand in a battle with Blake Rowe.

"It was definitely eventful," Harvick said. "Rackley W.A.R. brough me a really fast car. It just sucks that we couldn't get around the 71. That was pretty much what ruined us, you know? We were really fast. We stayed out, and then we pitted. That's all I needed really, was to get around the 71, and then I think it would have been a smooth sail from there."

Birch Run Speedway is the next stop for the Turn One CRA Pro Series. On Friday, July 31, the Pro Late Model tour heads to Birch Run, Michigan for the VanDoorn Racing Development Dixie 100.

-Photo credit: Champion Racing Association

Masters of the Pros 200 Unofficial Results